El Paso’s last remaining brothel building, in the heart of Duranguito.

Photograph by Jessica Attie

This article originally appeared in the October 2017 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “Born and Razed.”

In the Duranguito neighborhood, on the south side of downtown El Paso, 89-year-old Antonia Morales likes to walk down the block to her local park. The space is small, about a tenth of an acre, but the grass is green. A few years ago the city installed new sidewalks and red-brick pavers in the area, and Morales thinks the neighborhood—which is less than a mile from the river and Ciudad Juárez—looks better than it ever has. She tries to spend an hour or so at the park when she can, sitting on a bench under an ash tree.

Clean public spaces didn’t exist in Duranguito when Morales first moved here, in 1965. “It was very dirty, very ugly,” she says through a translator. “There were a lot of drugs, a lot of robbery, a lot of prostitution.” The streets were filled with trash: glass and syringes, car batteries and hubcaps. Some of the poorest residents slept on mattresses in the streets.

Morales and her neighbors wanted a better home. They called themselves fronterizos—proud to live on the border—and started cleaning up the neighborhood, block by block. Local activists helped petition the city to put up streetlights and pave the roads. They organized community meetings. “We gathered five hundred people in a schoolhouse to talk to the chief of police, and he agreed to help,” Morales says. “We cleaned the alleys. We picked up the syringes. We cleaned up everything.” Eventually, the neighborhood’s residents had a place where they were proud to live. And then one day, a year ago this month, the city decided it wanted Duranguito to become something else.

The city wanted the land for a “multipurpose performing art and entertainment center.” The larger area surrounding the site of the arena would also be redeveloped. The city council had approved the use of eminent domain to take the land, and many of the neighborhood residents decamped to far-flung parts of the city. But despite offers of compensation, Morales refused. Now she is the only remaining resident of a single-story tenement once occupied by roughly a dozen families. On her street, only one other neighbor remains. They live in limbo while a complicated debate takes place around them.

Duranguito and the neighborhoods of Chihuahuita and Segundo Barrio, to the east, form the southern edge of downtown El Paso and shape much of the city’s identity. The proposed arena is just one skirmish in a larger battle that has been going on for more than a decade. Many of the city’s political and business classes are convinced that south El Paso must undergo sweeping changes to fit their version of a modern city. There’s potential for better things, they believe, for this area tucked into a bend along the Rio Grande, between El Paso’s and Ciudad Juárez’s main tourist districts. In a city experiencing tremendous sprawl, these barrios are some of the only viable places to enact the new urban model of density, access to entertainment, and walkability.

But the people living there feel differently. They believe the redevelopment would pluck the heart out of their city. For older residents, like Morales, the prospect of finding equally affordable housing on a fixed income means moving far out to the suburbs, to places with limited transit links and public services, and the loss of a longtime fellowship with neighbors. Many Texas cities have seen gentrification sweep through their urban cores, but in El Paso, the debate has become increasingly bitter and personal, concentrated on a question that’s not so easy to resolve: Who gets to decide the future of a city?

Left: Antonia Morales, outside her Duranguito home, on September 5, 2017. Right: Max Grossman, in the Segundo Barrio, on September 5, 2017.

Photographs by Jessica Attie

In what could generally be described as a fight between activist groups and developers, Max Grossman exists as an outsider. He’s a militant aesthete with a doctorate in the architecture of Italian city-states as well as a committed conservative. “This is not just about historic preservation,” he says. “It’s about liberty, and restraining government, and transparency.”

Grossman, who teaches art history at the University of Texas at El Paso, served eight years on El Paso County’s historical commission earlier this year. Now Grossman, with the financial support ofJ. P. Bryan, the owner of the Gage Hotel, in Marathon, is waging a legal battle to preserve the historic buildings on the south side of El Paso. One such building, which brought Bryan into the fight against the redevelopment plan, is a thirties firehouse designed by famed architect Henry Trost, who also built the Gage, in 1927. During the past decade, Grossman has attained an encyclopedic knowledge of this part of El Paso, and on a recent afternoon in August, we set out for a walking tour of the neighborhoods.

In 1859 Duranguito became the first organized residential area of the city. Just about every low-slung brick-and-stucco building has a distinctive story. It has the last remaining frontier-era brothel building, which dates back to 1901 and is known to locals as the Mansion. Grossman is particularly fond of the brothel, he explains as we walk past, because it served as a kind of cultural center for El Paso in the “Old West days,” a place to hear “live violin music.” It endures today as one of the few relics from the city’s, and the state’s, most romanticized period.

When the Mexican Revolution started, in 1910, the people dislocated from south of the river gave these neighborhoods the character of a barrio. In many ways, the area is as historic for Mexico as it is for the United States. Mexican revolutionary Francisco Madero, for example, kept an office here during the revolution, not long before his brief tenure as Mexico’s president.

Pancho Villa’s ghost is everywhere too. Villa spent his exile in Duranguito before returning to Mexico to take over the famed División del Norte. He hoarded guns and gold in houses around the neighborhood. One building in the arena demolition zone, which Grossman says is one of the “first Victorians in town,” was the office of the lawyer who negotiated Villa’s final surrender to the Mexican government.

A few blocks away, there was the Emporium Bar, a hangout for spies and journalists during the revolution. Villa was a fan of the bar’s strawberry sodas. He stayed in the hotel next door with his crate of homing pigeons. One day, Colonel Maximilian Kloss walked into the bar and, according to some histories, offered the kaiser’s arms in exchange for German access to Mexican ports. This was part of a string of events that led to the Zimmermann Telegram, a secret cable from the German Foreign Office proposing an alliance with Mexico, and, ultimately, leading to America’s entry into World War I. The rest is history, and now the Emporium Bar is too: in 2003 the building was flattened to make way for a Burger King. Few people noticed at the time.

Grossman cares particularly about the architecture and the history, but the neighborhood’s residents have, perhaps, more important things in mind. These barrios have long served as a way station for immigrants heading deeper into the United States, the reason some call it a “second Ellis Island.” Still-operating tenements, clean and well maintained, offer a safe and cheap place to stay. The community has always oriented itself toward helping migrants, said Father Eddie Gros, who presided over Sacred Heart Parish in Segundo Barrio during the past decade. “A lot of the people in the parish were not documented,” Gros says. “Any plan that eliminates housing and offers federal housing as a replacement makes it impossible for people who pay their rent in cash to find a place to live.”

The real trouble between the developers and south El Paso dates back to the turn of the millennium. At the time, most of Texas was undergoing a population explosion and economic boom. El Paso was not. The North American Free Trade Agreement had brought money to the city, but it also decimated the city’s garment industry, which decamped for the other side of the river. And in 1999, one of the city’s largest employers, the toxic Asarco smelting plant, shut down.

The question was, what’s next for the city? In 2004, a body that included El Paso’s and Juárez’s most prominent businesspeople, including many of the area’s top property developers, formed the Paso Del Norte Group and commissioned a study to answer that question. A year later, a Supreme Court decision opened the door for local governments to use eminent domain to seize land for private economic development. In 2006, the Paso Del Norte Group released its plan for a large-scale redevelopment of downtown’s south side, which would affect some three hundred acres.

At the same time, El Paso’s old-guard city council members were losing seats to a crew of young reformers who considered themselves urbanists. They were El Paso natives who’d lived elsewhere and returned, and they wanted other young people to return as well, to attract and retain new business talent, and to jump-start the city’s economy and increase its low median wage. The Paso Del Norte Group’s plan for a renewed urban core provided the road map. In the summer of 2006, a marketing firm was hired to develop an ad campaign highlighting a vision for the future of El Paso. The instantly infamous presentation to the council that followed offended nearly everyone who saw or read it. “El Pasoans are extremely negative about their own city,” the report read. Images associated with the “old” El Paso included a picture of an older Hispanic man in a cowboy hat, accompanied by the words “Dirty,” “Lazy,” “Speak Spanish,” and “Uneducated,” while the vision of the new El Paso featured pictures of Matthew McConaughey and Penélope Cruz, accompanied by the words “Educated,” “Bi-lingual,” and “Enjoys entertainment.”

Residents of the south side took particular offense, and a new activist group, calling itself Paso del Sur, started to organize the community. Which is hard to do, says David Romo, a historian and activist with Paso del Sur, because so many of the neighborhood’s residents are older or undocumented. “Immigrants who congregate in places like Segundo Barrio and Duranguito don’t want to rock the boat,” Romo says. “So it’s easy for city hall to ignore them.”

Opposition from the neighborhood groups stalled the development before the global financial crash stopped it, but the foundation was set. In 2012, the city council decided to take another crack at it, centering on another redevelopment proposal. The city held a “Quality of Life” bond election in November of that year with the goal of funding a Hispanic cultural center, a children’s museum, and the arena.

The measure passed, and developers began buying up land in what they thought would become the arena footprint. But the city had jumped the gun. In 2016, opponents of the plan launched a legal challenge. In the city’s haste to pass the bond, a decision had been made to omit the mention of “sports” in the ballot language. Opponents charged that the facility must be legally limited to the language voters approved, which is to say, the performing arts and entertainment. In August, a judge in Austin sided with the opponents, ruling that the city could not legally use the money raised to build a venue designed for sports. Without that, the arena wasn’t financially feasible.

Dionne Mack, El Paso’s deputy city manager, says the goal is only to build “a vibrant and liveable downtown.” El Paso has trouble attracting investment and young business talent, she says, because of its isolation, the perception that big-city life is, at best, a six-hour drive away. “I want our kids to say, ‘I want to stay here. I want to live here,’ ” she says. “Who is going to build and invest in this area if the plan doesn’t go through?”

But the project is opposed by a few elected officials. One of the strongest opponents is El Paso’s state senator José Rodriguez, who wants to see the city instead develop its heritage tourism and historic preservation portfolio (his wife, attorney Carmen Rodriguez, joined a legal team representing residents in court). “I don’t want to say that they’ve been bought by the developers,” he says of the city council, “but they’ve at least been brought into their corner.”

The south side of El Paso, on September 5, 2017.

Photograph by Jessica Attie

On August 22, the city council met in executive session and voted six to one to retain its legal team, move forward with the appeal of the court’s decision in Austin, and try to win the right to build the sports arena it wants. Meanwhile, the city plans to begin demolishing eight buildings it owns in the arena’s footprint, pending an archaeological review required by the state. Neighborhood activists are collecting signatures to put a measure on next year’s ballot that grants Duranguito a historical designation. They suspect that if the city can’t include sports in the arena’s purview, it’ll junk the project. In the meantime, residents of the surrounding area, including Morales, are attending regular meetings to generate an alternate development plan to submit to the city if the arena fails for good.

The council’s sole dissenting member was Alexsandra Annello, who represents a district on El Paso’s northeast side. The thing pushing the project through at this point, Annello says, is momentum, and the perception of sunk cost. There’s a steep learning curve for new members of the council figuring out the nuances of the fight, she points out, and the city has spent a lot of money on this plan and a lot of money buying up property.

To Annello, the problem for the south side isn’t economic as much as a failure of imagination. El Pasoans, she says, have historically looked to the rest of Texas to figure out what they’re supposed to be. “We’re not Fort Worth, and we’re not San Antonio,” she says. “I grew up in the north end of Boston, a really historical neighborhood that has been gentrified. But at the same time, there are these areas, like Little Italy, with people who have owned homes forever. Boston worked really hard with the residents to keep that area the way it is. I just wish that was a consideration here.”

The conflict over the arena bid, Annello says, is as much about culture as it is about development. Take the name of the neighborhood itself. Though Grossman says “Duranguito” is found in historical records—the name is a nod to those who came from the Mexico state of Durango—it entered popular usage, according to Annello, only after “the idea of the arena came up,” as the neighborhood was developing its opposition to the city. The city, meanwhile, would prefer the neighborhood to be known as “Union Plaza,” which Annello says is equally new: “I had never heard that area referred to as Union Plaza.” As long as that cultural tension is unresolved, the development fights will continue as well.

Senator Rodriguez, lamenting one of the city’s newer branding attempts—a Hanna-Barbera-style mascot known as Amigo Man—puts it more bluntly. “To capture what El Paso really is, you need to accept the Mexicanness, the Mexican American, and indigenous roots of El Paso,” he says. “There’s too many people who say, ‘I want us to move away from that. I want us to be like Gringolandia, like all the other homogenized American cities.’ El Paso is unique. You can’t find a place like this anywhere.”

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Comments

We hope the fight will go on and that a CLEAR winner will be proven! This is Big Money and a big Brother screwing the Little guy with out the KY Jelly!

And the Fight for the sports part of this arena/venue is not over yet either, even with the Austin Judge saying not “SPORTS” of any kind, El Paso say it will appeal!

The property owners are now suing the city for $5 million dollars to prove the fact that they want the big money being paid for these properties!!!!

Kennedy Said one time that “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it”

Theresa Caballero

It’s unfortunate that the real issues never get an airing. Several developers have made a killing using taxpayer money as the investment. We actually blew up our city hall so that the developers could build the baseball stadium. Tax dollars paid for the stadium. Developers made the money. And we already had a baseball stadium that now sits empty. Now we’re going to raze a neighborhood so the same developers can build an arena with tax dollars. We have very high property taxes and a high rate of foreclosure. We owe more than $5 billion as a community and we have no more industry. Our county run childrens hospital filed for bankruptcy two years ago under the stewardship of county judge veronica escobar. All of the so called progressives have heavy donations on their campaign reports from same developers and their friends. Easy to check. After we blew up our city hall, the city moved to the el paso times building which had assiduously championed the whole thing, purchasing the newspaper building for many times over its appraised value. Now when you go to city hall it has city hall on the front and el paso times in big letters you can see from the freeway on the back. At last they are living in sin openly. Contrary to the article, i do not believe that tearing down homes for a big arena is what gentrify means. I do not believe displacing people from their homes so other people can go drink and dance or watch a game or whatever is progressive.

txjeep

Arlington, TX built a baseball stadium for the Rangers. Then later, we built them another. Just now, the city has announced plans to build another baseball stadium for 1 Billion dollars. Notice I did not mention the football stadium for Jerry Jones, the billionaire. It is a never
ending drain. Hope you can keep them out.

You’re right Theresa. Paving over our oldest history, heritage, culture and legacy in exchange for a gargantuan arena that will sit empty over 300 days of the year is not progressive. It’s regressive.

Starbucks and bush-league, basement-level AAA baseball over authentic El Paso culture and identity is not progressive.

City leaders and their puppet masters lack of any kind of understanding about what El Paso is really about and they would have us build, at taxpayer expense, a downtown and city made in THEIR IMAGE.

And their image consistenly leaves out any reference to our 82% Latino population.

Mayor Dee Margo, political wannabe Dori Fenenbock and a virtually all of City Council are some of the most tonedeaf and identity-challenged people you’ll find in El Paso.

Jared Diamond Steele

Jud, can you stop already? You are one of the most uninformed, loudest and dishonest people surrounding this issue. You’re the Alex Jones of El Paso and unfortunately, people are believing the lies you are spewing. You literally profiting by spewing hate and misinformation in order to sell your “products”. If anyone reads this, please do not believe the lies this man vomits. He is not a journalist, reporter, activist etc. He is just some grumpy guy who is trying to exploit the situation in order to make money for himself. Please people, listening to con artists like this, is how Trump got elected.

I’ll let readers compare what I have to say with what you have to say and let them decide who is the uninformed troll, David (I recognize your comments anywhere).

BTW – nice fake user name made from various people on my FB friends list…

Theresa Caballero

When you can’t win on the issues, just get personal. David, jesus whoever you are, you obviously don’t feel strong enough about the merits of your argument. Tell us how another tax payer built arena in an established neighborhood that we spent a lot of money on a few years back, paving, putting up old fashioned lamps, special street signs denoting its historical uniqueness, is going to help us. I want to hear your arguments on the issue. I think everyone does. Tell us. Give it your best shot and please address the taxpayer issue and our crushing debt and property taxes resulting in some of the highest property taxes in Texas along with the tragically high foreclosure rate we have.

Jared Diamond Steele

Theresa, I was not talking to you and I really don’t care about what you have to say. I can obviously tell you have father issues.

Jud, you caught me. It’s me David, your former lover.

Theresa Caballero

So david, jared, jesus, you have no argument to lay explaining to people why you advocate the destruction of a historical neighborhood, the removal of its residents who wanted to stay, building an arena on top of the ruins that will be empty most of the year and taking $180 million tax payer dollars and handing the millions to our local billionaires. No answers. Which i knew you wouldn’t have because you really dont care about the issue. You are a person who has an agreement, explicit or implied, with an operative to attack those who oppose the destruction of the neighborhood and the construction of another white elephant. This is a problem in el paso where jobs are hard to come by, property taxes are very high and its hard for people to make ends meet. What has emerged over the last fifteen years is this phenomenon that we are witnessing with this person who, under different names, anonymously attacks people who oppose givernment malfeasnce. Jared, davud, jesus is earning something from someone for his efforts. Could be money, promise of a job, patronage,romote the arena

Hey man, you’re out of your league trying to troll people on Texas Monthly.

Jesús B Ochoa

Some history: back in the day, Magoffin Ave. was the dividing line between north and south and Mexicans and Whites. Whites lived mostly north of Magoffin, and Mexicans lived south. Magoffin was the north boundary of the Second Ward (El Segundo Barrio). The barrio ran south to the river, west to the city limits, and east to the smelter.
Duranguito was part of the barrio. Although the northern boundary has shifted south, the Duranguito neighborhood continues to be part ot the barrio. The name Duranguito is a relatively new construct.

Burgess, Caballero and Wineman are all on the money. Here’s more. The voters passed a $180 million bond issue for a multi-purpose cultural and entertainment center. in response to a suit brought by the city, a District Court in Austin ruled that since “sports” were not mentioned in the enabling city ordinance, the city could spend the money to build a facility housing musical, theatre and stage performances, but NOT sports. The city is appealing, and the local Chamber of Commerce and other usual suspects are busily spreading fairy tales and downright lies about the state of things. “We will build a sports arena in Duranguito” – is their local mantra. They are banking on a reversal of the court decision, which I believe to be chancy. The court was delightfully careful in her language, and I am told that the evidence was there for all to see. Barring a reversal, the city could enter into a deal with the rich folk to build their sports arena. Problem is, three or so years ago the city indebted the citizenry to the tune of $130 million in bonds and interest, give or take, for the privilege of building a baseball park which it owns in downtown El Paso. Given the huge number of empty seats over two seasons, and as the Mexicans love to say, the citizenry were sold “gato por liebre” – alley cat posing as rabbit. Hard to believe they would buy empty promises a second time, but who knows?

The “Tejano Grreens”, an autonomous branch of the El Paso County Green Party, has proposed an alternative that is drawing considerable support, Make of the Duranguito neighborhood a green park, with trees, seasonal flowers and benches. About 85% of historical buildings would be saved. A beautiful cultural center, with architecture recalling the pyramids of ancient Mexico would be built. It would be named the Mexican-American Cultural Center of the City of El Paso. A separate state of the art theater of 5,000 capacity would be built in proximity ot the Center. This would be named the Gabriel Navarrete Memorial Theatre. The park itself would be named the Company E, 36th Infantry Division Memorial Park. Company E was composed mostly of boys from Smeltertown and the barrio, and some from southwest Texas. They brought home three Medals of Honor, 31 Distinguished Service Crosses, 12 Legions of Merit, 492 Silver Stars, 11 Soldier’s Medals, and 1,685 Bronze Stars, along with a huge number of casualties. And his does not include 2 Distinguished Service Crosses for World War I (one of which should have been a Medal of Honor for Marcelino Serna). His captain refused to recommend him because, Marcelino couldn’t speak English and he was an illegal alien – neither of which kept him from being the most decorated soldier from Texas in the war. Nor does it include Ambrosio Guillen, awarded the Medal of Honor for the bravery that cost him his life in Korea.

As an aging, much decorated Ranger pal from World War 2 likes to say, “we have, by the most high God, paid, and we have paid in blood”.

In addition, the barrio would finally be honored with an historic district overlay. It is the third site of the portals for immigrants, along with Ellis and Angel Islands. Then the barrio could be placed in the natiomal registry of historic places. We have been trying for almost 15 years to get this designation for the barrio, and sad to say, our letters have not been answered by the past three administrations, as well as the current one.

I think my Ranger friend is absolutely right.

If you are interested, go to the About tab on the El Paso County Green Party web site, send me a message, and I will send you the written narrative that has been given city council in support of our suggestion.

High420Lonesome

You are the one that is spreading out right lies much worst than Fake News Jesus!

Jesús B Ochoa

was ever a dog that praised its fleas?

Jesus Pena

MAX GROSSMAN OPPRESSES LOW INCOME HISPANICS. Most people hope for a better future for others. However, Max Grossman wants the poorest of the poor to continue living in dilapidated buildings owned by the City’s worst slumlords. These beloved building have fallen victim to neglect for decades. Grossman has not made a single effort to help these forgotten people anytime in the past.

If the previous building owners were not responsible enough to maintain these properties, then shame on them for simply squeezing rent from defenseless low income hispanic tenants. All real estate has a life cycle. And if not properly taken care of, will eventually come down one way or another.

The neighborhood name “Duranguito” did not even exist until Max Grossman coined the phrase, and used it to stir up public sentiment for this small section of downtown. Don’t believe me? Do an advanced Google search for the phrase “barrio duranguito” for matching content dated earlier than 2016. … nada.

Disgraced former member of the El Paso County Histporical Commission, Grossman is using these poor Mexican’s as pawns in his personal vendetta of retaliation. Shame, shame, shame..Max!

This effort to stop the demolition of buildings that are so far beyond repair, is doing nothing more than burning taxpayer’s hard earned money.

Theresa Caballero

Well jose Pena, you did not address the stealing going on. Txjeep wrote Arlington is just one big arena all funded by taxpayers to make millionaires into billionaires. How does that help poor people? And these people living in duranguito wanted to stay there, thus all the protests and days spent at city hall. But you didnt hear them based on your post. Now they have been taken out of their neighborhood and scattered to the winds living somewhere in the sprawl without transportation in dilapidated housing somewhere else and now unable to gather. Smart of the powers that be. Because our property taxes now approach more than a third of a mortgage payment, el pasoans have taken to not making repairs. Just go up on scenic drive and cast your eye on all the hundreds if not thousands of bad roofs. Max grossman has tried to save what’s left of an urban area, that is quaint, that people want to live in and is historical. You apparently belong to the set that believes the city should allow codes not to be enforced so that property owners can let their gems fall into disrepair and then be torn down. You do know that in places where respect their history, they take care of their buildings. Rome and istanbul etc, have buildings over a thousand years old. Imagine that! You must have been elated when to know the city tore down our carnegie library, court house, trost buildings and turn of the century apt buildings for all the those lovely parking lots we have now. Your attack on mr. Grossman is pugnacious. I wonder what investment you have in the arena. You sound like a page right out of the developers’ play book. Mr. Grossman is not a disgraced former member of the historical commission. He did his job and was a good steward of history and he was rewarded with removal from the commission by a developer hack, county judge escobar. She has to earn her campaign contributions you know. Running for congress is expensive.

Walli Haley

Jesus Pena, Max Grossman has been a champion of the poor living in Duranguito. He has fought for their wish to remain in their homes, humble as you think they are. Far from being a “disgraced member of the El Paso County Historical Commission,” Max has been a vocal advocate for El Paso’s history and architectural patrimony. And yes, it’s a shame these property owners allowed their properties to decline. But that’s not the fault of the people who live in those buildings. It’s partly because El Paso property taxes are among the highest in the state, if not the nation, and it becomes a sad trade off between maintaining your property and paying your taxes. But more to the point here, if the property owners were intent on selling their properties to make way for a useless arena, why keep up the properties? As for the “taxpayers’ “hard earned money,” the arena will cost us at least $180 million for a property that will be used by a few and which will end up as another white elephant, like Cohen Stadium has become. The taxpayers will be the ones left holding the bag, not the developers. So shame on you.

High420Lonesome

How many college credits does Max Grossman owe you? I saw Max Grossman during an interview at his westside El Paso home. And weeds growing wild inside his yard, I’m really glad that El Paso County Officials fired him from the Texas Historical Commission.

Skydiverr

Wow, again with the personal attacks? Whoever you are, it’s obvious why “lonesome” is part of your name. That lady you just insulted is a highly educated and experienced attorney with more education than you’ll ever attain in your lifetime.

Skydiverr

Jesus Pena, your lack of knowledge is almost as amazing as your ability to lie to try to cover for that fact.

Burning the taxpayers’ hard-earned money seems to be the sole function of city hall in concert with MountainStar Sports Group and all the other players who have regarded themselves since the Paso Del Norte Group days. This bunch of elitist, self-proclaimed “community leaders” are the robber barons of the modern day. They are abusing their wealth and influence over our city time and time again. Their tactics are outrageously obvious. The one Austin judge that caught the case when the city tried it’s best to get into a court they believed was too far away to be convenient enough for any citizen to travel for opposition saw right through the bait and switch scheme that was presented to voters in 2012. I wish she had declared the whole vote null and void. THAT WOULD HAVE SAVED THE TAXPAYERS FROM PAYING FOR A HUGE WHITE ELEPHANT. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/79ff6a7342782d1fd6141cf323a4df9d38872871b8de1a8f68c492ef3878e36b.jpg

High420Lonesome

And to think that you call yourself skydiverr,seems you forgot to open your parachute first and landed on your head second.Jesus Pena is right on the money!

Skydiverr

Wow, that is a very broad opinion. Would you care to elaborate on why you think Jesus Pena is “right on the money”? I think I correctly and factually rebutted every statement he made which proved him wrong on every statement he made.

thomaspainelives

Mr. Pena. Your insults and misinformation makes one assume you’re in cahoots with either the city or the developers. Mr. Grossman was NOT disgraced; he, Bernie Sargent, and a few other Historical Commission members were too vocal in their fight to save Durangito and the big money folks made their disfavor known. The new Historical Commission is not allowed to have an opinion, they are ruled not by the chairperson but a troika of county attorneys and aides. As for being responsible enough, those owners were people who bought the buildings after the 2006 report from the PRIVATE group called the Paso del Norte Group. This group later became the Borderplex Alliance, and some of it’s members own the MoutainStar Sports Group who would benefit at taxpayer expense if the arena is built. As a matter of fact, they’re hedging their bets because they’ve approached the county for a public/private enterprise to build a soccer stadium in “downtown”. Your opinion does not allow you to also make up your own “facts”. A little research could have saved you a lot of writing as well as ridicule for being so wrong.

High420Lonesome

And tell everyone here how many college credits to you receive for speaking up for Max Grossman! Call it Paso del Norte, Borderplex Alliance, MountainStar Sports these groups help bring JOBS to El Paso! Max Grossman and Paso del Sur help scare away would be developers including jobs.
You think that Almazon would want to locate it’s second headquarters to El Paso? You naysayers are in a Sad State of Mind!

Skydiverr

You keep mentioning college credits when talking to people who have been out of college two or three times already. I don’t know where you get your information, but these developers are what is keeping all the companies offering any kind of substantive jobs out of El Paso. The only jobs that are being created by any of the things going on downtown are mostly minimum wage jobs and all the rest of our tax money is going into their pockets up front.

tillzen

Bravo Mr. Pena! The usual suspects above and below have fiddled their malarkey as El Paso burned for 20 years. Had they ability, will or compos mentos, they’d have done something / anything! To ANY El Pasoan who reads, Burgess and Caballero (like the UTEP imagineers) are known (most) by their entitled blather. Your ideas and ideals (while fine and patrician) are like Duranguito; nobly gone to rot.

James Peinado

I always root against the El Paso Chihuahuas…just saying. Crony is crony.

Daniel

Senator Rodriguez and I graduated from the same university in Rio Grande Valley of South Texas at different times…. I as a former Bel Air Highlander and an Ysleta Graduate DO NOT feel insulted at all. I am PROUD that Senator Rodriguez fights for El Paso’s Heritage.

“You did not address the stealing. Txjeep said Arlington is nothing but arenas being built by millionaires so they can become billionaires on taxpayer dollars. How does that help poor people? Or maybe they can eat cake. The residents of duranguito wanted to stay in their homes in their neighborhood, thus all the protests and days spent at city hall. But you didn’t hear them. Now they have been removed from their homes and scattered to the sprawl, without transportation, living in dilapidated housing somewhere else, unable to gather now. Smart move from the powers that be. You seem to be from the set that believes that the city should not have to enforce its codes thereby letting property owners run their gems into the ground so they can justify demolishing them. You know there are communities that value their history and preserve their buildings/patrimony? Rome and Istanbul have buildings over a thousand years old. Imagine that! You must have been elated to discover that el paso leaders knocked down our carnegie library, the old courthouse, trost buildings, turn of the century apartment buildings and have given us all those lovely parking lots people are flocking to see. Just go to scenic drive and cast your eye on the hundreds if not thousands of bad roofs that are tell tale of the plight of the el paso property owner. Property taxes now comprise over one third of the average mortgage payment forcing the home owner to choose between repairs and foreclosure. We are over $5 billion dollars in debt and growing with each arena. Your attack on max grossman was pugnacious. I have to wonder what involvement you have with the arena. You read like a page out of the developers’ playbook. We are to believe that young el pasoans will stay in el paso if they have another arena to party in. They can’t be leaving because of the lack of jobs or the nightmare inducing taxes on the $5 billion dollar debt. No, they need another bar. That’s the ticket! Can you say Detroit? Grossman has tried to take an urban neighborhood which is quaint and a place where people want to live and save it from a history demolishing land grab. He is not a disgraced commissioner. He did his job and was a steward of el paso’s historical buildings and was rewarded with removal from the commission by county judge veronica escobar.

For those that are not familiar with El Paso! there is no such place called the Barrio Durangito! it’s called the Union Plaza and previously known as the First Ward. And the Segundo barrio is South of Paisano Street aka the Second Ward, also a thriving neighborhood that you would best beware not to venture in.
One part of the Union Plaza has some nicely old renovated well kept apartment rentals,lofts,restaurants and entertainment night clubs including the old Santa Fe train station. While the other part of the Union Plaza was not as fortunate as it has become a run down dilapidated downtown eyesore whom no one ever seem to notice or have any concern about who lived there. It was pretty much about poverty, cheap rents and vacant warehouses including the cities first brothel whorehouse of it’s early days and looks very third world in appeariance.

In 2012 during the presidential elections, over one hundred thousand El Pasoans went to the polls to either re-elect president Barack Obama and vote in some new city council representatives and county and state officials.
And we also went to vote for a Quality Of Life Bond Issues totaling over $430 million dollars in projects! and one was for Proposition 2,a $180 million dollar downtown arena. Knowingly that Proposition 2 would also include sports, the initiative was overwhelmingly approved and passed by over 71% of the voters.
Strangely! El Paso voters also elected a new mayor that sold cars and his mother bombarded television car sales commercials claiming that her son is a good boy.

City council decided to put the downtown arena on the back burner and leave it till the very end for it’s construction date to begin somewhere close to the year 2030. However it was then realized that El Pasoans would not be getting their bucks worth for the downtown arena if they allowed it be built by then. It would be a smaller arena and building materials and construction cost would soar higher so the city decided to move it forward.
So the process begin by first the city having to hire a out of town consulting firm to avoid conflict of interest if they hired from within which would had resulted in what we are seeing now.

The out of town consulting firm was to find three best downtown locations for the three signature Quality Of Life
projects,and the Union Plaza was the selected choice for the downtown arena. It was the best choice because it was going to replace the dilapidated run down eyesore that is a part of the Union Plaza located south of the Judson F. Williams,convention center.
In October 2016 city council unanimously approved the downtown arena location to be built at the Union Plaza!
knowing that it would be easier to relocated the very few residents that lived there.In all about 65 residents would be affected so this was very minimal and cost effective for the city. And that the city would also help provide monetary assistance including rent and moving expenses, I say they got a great deal to move out and upgrade their own living conditions.

But then came the opposition,the protesters,the so called historians, the preservationist and the disruptor’s and all the radical naysayers movement including college students from UTEP. Where their historian professor would give them college credits for showing up the protest rallies,and this is still going on today.
In December 2016 four city council members and the mayor of El Paso did an about face as they decided to change their minds. And together with the historian college professor and the opposition to the arena secretly held a meeting, a COMPLETE VIOLATION OF THE TEXAS OPEN MEETING LAWS! They were all caught on video camera taking turns going back and forth with their secret meetings. They decided to build the arena elsewhere and remove the Union Plaza from the downtown arena list, HOW DARE THEM DO THIS TO THE WILL OF THE VOTERS!
They all new they were breaking the law,so the four city council members decided to come back to their senses, and reinstate the Union Plaza for the downtown arena site.

We had faced this issue before when the city wanted to build the downtown ballpark stadium, there was also opposition from the very same people. They used the same tactics at all of their protest by beating drums and intimidating and trying to scare city council away, it didn’t work then and it shouldn’t work now.
The city built the citizens of El Paso a very awesome state of the art triple A baseball stadium called Southwest University Park for our El Paso Chihuahuas baseball team.
In contrary to what Jesus B Ochoa says about empty seats! I will tell you that in four short seasons of their existence,the El Paso Chihuahuas have exceeded expectations by drawing approximately 2,258,803 fans.
They average over 550,000 fans per season! hows that for empty seats Jesus?

So now the downtown arena is caught up in the 8th court of appeals and more delays by those that are refusing to help push our city move forward. Just recently El Paso state senator Jose Rodriguez insulted us with his statement when he said that El Paso is not a homogenized American city and that we don’t want it to become another Gringolandia!
Well I favor Gringolandia over third world poverty dilapidated eyesores that patch up over South of Interstate 10 every here and there in El Paso Texas. I don’t call that proud culture blend either. I call it pure laziness and people that are never going to do anything with their lives and don’t want to change or improve their own living conditions.

The historian professor from UTEP just wants to make a name for himself,he is the one that innovated the Durangito name and he is also the one giving his college students credits if they show up to the protest rallies.
He also has instigated all the anti downtown arena protest. He supposedly is being investigated by the Texas Rangers for the Texas Open Meeting Laws Violation with city council members including the former mayor.
He even has a generous sponsorship of a Houston Billionaire that is financing his legal expenses that he has acquired from this downtown arena fiasco. Last year the County of El Paso fired him from the Texas Historical Commission.
And finally going back to the downtown arena Union Plaza delima! Why weren’t these historians and protesters doing something way long time ago about the deteriorating and living conditions of the dilapidated Union Plaza?
They were nowhere to be found,they didn’t even exist,another group that I didn’t mention is the Paso del Sur, the radicals that come the Segundo barrio. The same ones that desperately tried to derail the downtown ballpark in 2012 and now they together with the historian want to derail the downtown arena.
If we the Citizens of El Paso would continue to allow these anti progress anti everything that is good for the future of El Paso’s children’s and generations to come. Including future developments that will bring more jobs including skillful good paying jobs to El Paso, I’m all for it. What I’m against is US VERSUS THEM,THE NONSENSE GRINGOLANDIA MENTALITY! El Paso is already rich in culture and history and if we can improve our city for the better,then lets do it without the naysayers input ,they don’t fix nothing they don’t create jobs or help bring tourist to spend money in El Paso.
All they do is complain and complain some more,since they have so much time on their hands to waste! and they complain about Paul Foster, Woody Hunt and the Meyers Group! these people help create jobs for our local citizens and they give back to our society worth in the $millions.
What do you do for El Paso OPPOSITION? NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!
For those of you Texans that don’t live in El Paso, Come visit us and see for your own self. El Paso is way much better off if we ever to become a homogenized American City that also includes some Gringolandia to blend with the culture. It might even teach some of these anti progress naysayer commenters some good manners and good housekeeping techniques. There is always time to learn and never late to improve their lifestyles!

Nomme

Thank you for the background/historical explanation. For some of us that left El Chuco a long time ago it’s useful, regardless of whether we do or don’t agree with your stance.

High420Lonesome

That is really sad that I took all these time to write my comment, there is nothing wrong with my comment,but once I see this little clock sign with the words,Hold on,this is waiting to be approved by Texas Monthly.
Yeap it figures we live in the most oppressive Red State of the Union!

Jed

Wow. Who knew an article about El Paso would bring out the insider crazies a la anything about vaccines.

Skydiverr

Well, Lonesome, I hope you can afford 5-6% annual property taxes because your knowledge of economics is highly underwhelming so you’ll most likely be one of those people that believe that when the city appraises your home at a certain figure that it’s really worth that much. Oh, and your knowledge of the history of El Paso is also equally underwhelming.

Reality

El Pasoans definitely need to protest the Fort Bliss Contract assignments. Billions of Dollars going to Out-of-City and Out-of-State Contractors. Friends and Buddy’s of Fort Bliss Administration obtaining Billions of Dollars when El Pasoans just get the minimual minimun dollar sub-contracts. El Pasoans just cannot stand these Out-of-Town Contractors coming in and taking all the Federal Money while Fort Bliss Administrators get Huge kick-backs. El Pasoans must begin to Block Entracnes to Fort Bliss and Demand Justice for the Locals.

tillzen

Sadly the author is buying the myth of “Pobrecito” that our pandering populists like Senator Rodriguez peddle as their alibi. “Duranguito” has not existed as a genuine neighborhood in years. Local government left the residents and it’s “history” to rot into oblivion only viable to slumlords and real estate squatters betting on the renewal that 70% (of the 20% who actually vote) approved. For 17 years Rodriguez was our County’s attorney and in between doing little to stem Duranguito’s slide into decay, the now Senator slid easily between photo-op “Mexicanness” and serving the interests of “Gringolandia” when that fed his needs. This article merely furthers the agenda of our adjunct class warfare fashionistas. Sadly they (like the UTEP elite) have no more commitment to the legitimate 24-7-365 requirements of actual governance than do our profiteers. If readers (and the author) are interested in the truth of this issue, look into the past 20 years of Senator Rodriguez and Max Grossman’s body of work. NOBODY in government comes out of the past 20 years of Duranguito’s demise looking good but much of this Pobrecito storm and fury signifying NOTHING is a class warfare alibi serving the myth of victimization. This pandering spin hobbled Old El Paso but to THIS generation of involved locals, it is merely a nip at our ankles as New El Paso emerges; its Mexicanness not only intact but required and beloved.

Sean Norris

This was an article I was interested in reading, until I read in the second paragraph that she had been here since 1965 and was speaking thorough a translator.